noob question inbound

[robertchalmers1]

When you overclock a gpu does it automatically use more power or does it only start using more power when you start increasing volts.

Basically if I don't change volts will it use same amount of power at stock as it would do with a mild OC on it

 

[elJarmen]

Not too sure. Don't think voltage is fixed all the time but rather changes with the load on the card. So when you OC, while volts are unchanged, I'd expect the card to work more nearer to it's maximum set value, hence drawing more power, albeit marginally so.

 

[robertchalmers1]

Cheers I wasn't sure either way how it affected the overall power consumption

 

[rolypolyman]

Pretty sure when you 'lock in' an overclock you are forcing the card to work full on and draw the maximum it can, if not enough volts then it will crash, then add more volts and so on until you reach your max overclock.

 

[d_brennen]

Power draw and frequency don't scale linearly. Usually you find you'll need increasingly more power to attain increasingly smaller gains. Most GPUs have a pretty low power idle state, for when not rendering 3D graphics, and the actual cost in electricity from overclocking is fairly small, even if you were gaming nonstop for 12 hours a day

e: A nice graph. It's a CPU because I am lazy but the principle is the same